For people who are overcome by visions of what is wrong and how we think it can be fixed, we often find that we cannot stand the gap between what is and what could be, a space educator Parker Palmer calls “the tragic gap.”

Our approach to leadership is full of action. We plow ahead, trying to escape the uncomfortable gap as fast as possible, so we can get to that point where things have been made right. As I learned from many lessons early in my career, though, speed is often an ineffective strategy, and there can be negative side effects of being too focused on getting to the finish line too quickly.

When leadership is driven by nothing but speed, we can pass right by a better path. We do not really hear what others are saying. And we are not able to see alternative strategies that would actually be more effective at getting us where we had hoped to go.

Being able to pause, being able to slow down, is essential for good leadership, no matter what type of company you run or what type of business you are working on. Even in the middle of a crisis, sometimes when we get too drawn into the energy of panic, we can lose our ability to think clearly, and by not pausing, by not taking a moment to slow down, we actually lose our ability to effectively solve the problem.

This pausing and slowing down does not seem to come very naturally, though, in a culture that has become much more comfortable with doing than we are with being.

We are in constant performance mode – trying to sound smart, trying to do impressive things, trying to prove our value. We have a very hard time with simply being present, and it means that we are missing a lot.

Picture for a moment, sitting on the couch, watching television. You have a box of chocolates sitting next to you and you are eating them absentmindedly, barely noticing their taste, until you reach over to grab another one and realize there is nothing left. You have eaten the entire box and hardly remember.

If you pause, though, if you turn off the television and focus on the chocolate, and slowly notice its texture, its smell, and its taste, you discover something new. You notice its nuances. Its flavor is deeper and more complex. You enjoy it more.

When we slow down, we draw more meaning and value out of our experience in daily lives and in our work. We can connect more with ourselves and with others and discover what really gives us that sense of well-being that we are all working so hard to find.

Recognizing the value of a pause to me is not about switching entirely from fast to slow. It is not about becoming the tortoise instead of the hare. It is about figuring out how to be both the tortoise and the hare and move intentionally between the two.

Sometimes your business will call for you to make a quick decision, and your gut reaction will be the fastest and most appropriate tool to use at the time. And there will be times when something is truly urgent and cannot wait for you to think on it overnight or incorporate the opinions of others.

We would serve ourselves well, though, to recognize that there is just as much (and perhaps even more) benefit to slowing down as there is to speeding up. Technology and many other aspects of our lives conspire to keep speeding things up, and it is up to us to sometimes take our foot off the gas.

Jessica H. Lawrence is a former CEO of Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council. She is a respected speaker, writer and frequent consultant on business, nonprofit management, social media, and the technology sector. Jessica can be reached at jessicahlawrence@gmail.com.

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